Southpa

You got my vote Lex. In all honesty I would never vote for my own instrument when the choices are so obvious. Nice work, man. What clinched it was seeing the picture of the back of that walnut bass. How was the wood to work with? Easy to rout, sand, etc. as compared to other woods? Just wait til next time tho...I still have LOTS of mahogany left and some new ideas,

Its not just a job...ITS AN ADVENTURE! I couldn't tell you how many acoustic and electric guitars I have resurrected from the grave. Part of your hubbie's soul is worked into the wood of that guitar and it would be a shame to throw it on the trash heap. And as a few others have said, you might wind up putting just as much effort into making it "wall art" as making it play again. Let us know where you live and perhaps one of the board members who lives near you can make it look and sound nice again for you for free, with the exception of the cost of any parts that might be needed. I can't speak for everyone here but I am constantly looking for old guitars to practice and develop my skills on. That is payment enough. I fix them then give them away. There is nothing like making a guitar sing again, give it a new lease on life. I live in Victoria, BC.

Hey Ace, another option is replace the tuners with Grover mini-tuners, they are about half the weight of the full size Grovers. However, the full size Grovers are likeliest the heaviest tuners ever made, . I don't know what kind of tuners are on the guitar now but it might make a difference, especially on that end of the guitar.

Just got some pics taken of my latest project. Its my old EKO Model 100 archtop that I use as a slide guitar. It used to be a crappy mustard yellow to chocolate brown sunburst, the varnish was badly checked and chipped. After stripping it all off I discovered a beautifully figured 3ply spruce top. I stained the body Kingfisher blue, using Dylon fabric dye, and clearcoated with automotive laquer. Then wetsanded up to 2000 grit and polished with Meguiar's No. 2. The neck is Madonna blue, again with fabric dye and has a heavy poylurethane clearcoat. The poly went down so smooth and glossy that I didn't bother with any further sanding or polishing. Nothing like a little side job to fill in time while waiting for that UPS truck with more parts for the next project.

Welcome to the board! I'm assuming the stock HB pickups on Epi's are 3-wire pickups, ie. red, white and bare. If I'm wrong then please reply with the correct configuration. Here is the basic setup for coil splitting a similar 3-wire pickup made by Golden Age. http://www.stewmac.com/freeinfo/I-GOLDEN-AGE.html In order to do this you need an extra switch called a DPDT (double pole - double throw) thats the little box with the six contacts. The switch can be mounted separately somewhere on the face of the guitar. You are better off going with a push/pull pot that has the DPDT incorporated into it. That way you won't have to drill any holes in the body.

30 yrs. but not a rock star quite yet.

You can buy polyurethane in gloss, semi-gloss or satin coat.

eeeeeeeeeeee, tough calls and don't want to step on any toes, so I can only speak from my own experience. Mahogany is a porous wood. That said then the rest should just follow common sense. My last guitar was all mahogany and I didn't use grain filler. I did lay dark red mahogany stain, literally soaked the wood with it. The stain shrunk when drying. I was hoping the stain would do some filling as well as enhance the grain. When sanded back down the grain was darker but there were still lots of low spots. It took a lot of layers of polyurethane to fill those low spots before I could wet sand without touching wood. If I used grain filler I'm sure I would have needed less poly. Its nice to start with an even surface when applying your paint or clearcoat.

I made one out of stainless a while ago. Aluminum is much softer and easier to scratch. Actually, after a while your pickguard will start to look pretty bad, but each to his/her own. Here are a few tips for cutting: 1.You can use any fine toothed blade for shaping, I prefer a jigsaw with a hacksaw type blade mounted on it, VERY noisy. When you have the shape you want you might like to bevel the edges to a uniform 45 degree angle. Use a very fine file and then smooth out with 400 grit paper. 2.Aluminum is really easy to bend, warp, and it also expands and contracts a great deal due to temperature changes. When you start to cut your shape glue a piece of 1/4" thick wood to the back of your stock sheet and clamp it down firmly. This will allow the aluminum to remain rigid and flat while cutting and will prevent it from bouncing around. 3.Center punching is fine but don't hammer TOO hard. The punch will push in the metal around your hole-to-be. Those big dimples can be hard to remove. If you have to take out any imperfections do so gently. Aluminum is also very malleable. If you were to hammer it on a steel surface then you could also flatten it out making your sheet thinner and warping the piece. 4.Aluminum will tarnish and form a dull grey aluminum oxide on the surface over time, very ugly. You might want to spray some sort of hard, scratch resistant clearcoat on the surface to maintain that shine and slow down oxidation. 5.Lastly, aluminum conducts electricity very well. When wiring up your guitar, work out a way to incorporate a ground wire (earth) for your pickguard. I stripped about 2" off my bridge post ground wire, fed it into the post hole and then laid it across the body. The remaining bare wire then contacted the underside of the pickguard when mounted.

Okie dokie, I'll be home all afternoon, its Jan 22 - 12:41 PST (thats in Victoria, BC, center of the universe, ) and I'll just leave the chat window open. Anyone pops in, just hang around. I'll check it periodically.

Home is where the compu...uh heart is. I guess I'm sort of semi-retired, middle aged and in between jobs. I used to work in fisheries management and would be away for months at a time. Gov't cutbacks killed that off so I gotta find a niche elsewhere in another field of work. Such is life.

Got any pikchures? Read up on some of LGM's tutorials in the "pinned" section above. There are lots of different types of imperfections, usually occurring during the stripping process. I've dinged (tiny gouges) the wood numerous times while scraping. There is a certain methodology involved in prepping a guitar for finishing. If you have imperfections like dents, scratches and gouges in the wood you can't simply concentrate on sanding them smooth individually. That will result in a general "unevenness" in your final finish. And its very easy to detect when seeing light reflecting off the gloss. Your sanding should be done as evenly as possible. Use a rigid block on flat areas, maybe a foam pad on gentle curves. If you plan on painting the guitar then you could probably use filler in the deeper areas, but look for that happy medium where you can take the highs and lows out evenly. As far as applying laquer goes, it depends on what sort of tools you have available and your skill(s) at using those tools. I don't have a compressor spraygun apparatus or even the facilities to use one. I get along just fine in the backyard, when the weather behaves, with rattle cans of automotive laquer or polyurethane. A good idea would be to find a book on finishing or building in general. Melvyn Hiscock's "Make Your Own Electric Guitar" is a good resource. Keep reading this forum, MIMF and others. If you aren't sure about what you are doing then don't begin until you have a game plan set in your head. I'm fairly new at the guitar finishing game myself, and have opted to practice on a few cheapo guitars first. Most of my previous experience was in the autobody and boat building trades, but the principles are all pretty much the same. Personally, I learn more from my own mistakes than others. Sort of like "I have to see it for myself, then I'll believe it."

I guess I should have shown what the wood looked like originally, ie. before staining. And thanks for straightening things out Page_Master, what did you do, btw? I've been thru too many picture hosting sites that eventually want money or folks need a password just to view my pictures. And there are always a few hitches in posting the pics elsewhere like this site. Anyway, back to the wood. You can see a BIG difference in color tone from beginning to end, namely because mahogany is such a porous wood. If you want a black guitar but still want to allow some of the figure/grain showing thru then I would imagine the darkest stain you can find would do the trick. Experiment with black walnut, maybe? You can rub it in with a rag or brush it on. Sand lightly and evenly then apply a clear grain filler. Read LGM's tutorial on finishing and choose your poison, . He likes polyurethane and so do I as long as it remains uncontaminated throughout the finishing process. Poly also lays down thicker and actually helps fill the grain quite nicely. My next guitar will be similar to this one (stolen) but I'm going to go a different route in the finish. Kingfisher blue stain and then clear grain filler then laquer clearcoat.

This is similar to Kevin's method, but without the veneer. Its a solid mahogany neckthrough. Prior to filling the grain I laid three heavy coats of dark red mahogany stain down and worked it right into the grain with a rag. Then I sanded everything right back down leaving the remains of the stain in the open grain areas. (Sorry about the irritating rhyming) This was a good way to enhance the grain of the wood, especially if its a relatively nonfigured wood. Then fill the grain and apply clearcoat. In this case polyurethane.

I was given a bag o' cowhorns last summer. Was trying to cut nut blanks with little success. The stuff is too curvy and saw blades want to follow the grain. And it smells worse than bone, .

Good Idea, but almost every time I pop in there its empty! If we really want to communicate you should set up some timeframe when we can get together and chew the fat.

So what Hyunsu ia saying is if your joint is a tight fit, ie. you sand each face smooth you will wind up squeezing all the glue out when clamping. His drawing looks like you get a better bond with the joint faces roughened up to help retain the glue while clamping. Speaking of clamps, I like the ones you are using, I think I might even be able to make a couple like that. I have some 5/16" threaded rod laying around. I liked using 1 piece mahogany for a neckthrough with a dual action (Hotrod) trussrod. I found truss rod adjusting was more responsive. Once the guitar was strung up you could adjust for relief and actually see the strings move up or down off the fretboard as you turn. AlexVDL, I don't think the problem is with the neck because your anchor point is actually the body and not the neck. I don't see good results by simply anchoring a neck into mahogany with just wood screws. You can see how soft the wood is by attacking it with a router at slow speed (I learned my lesson there). The stuff just tears out in chunks. At best, I would drill out the neck and then tap bushings or sleeves in for bolts to slide through. The bolts would have to be a close fit for the inside diameter of the bushings to avoid wobbling. On the body side I would screw in threaded anchors that have machine threads inside. And you would need at least 4 with very close tolerance for the mating surfaces. Any gaps between the anchors and the surface of the neck pocket and you might rip them out by tightening too much. On a side note, I find that getting a digital camera one of my first priorities for these discussions. Some things are just too hard to describe these days.

Depends on what size you need. I know cowbone is used and you can buy bone acoustic guitar saddle blanks roughly 4" long X 1/2" wide X approx. 1/8" thick at most guitar repair shops. I'm not sure where you can get wider pieces but you might be able to use a couple widths of those to get what you need. Whenever I cut out a new saddle I always save the scraps for potential inlay pieces like dots or sidemarkers.

When I was working in the boatbuilding field we used 3M blue or green masking tape exclusively. I still use it on my guitars. One important point regarding poly/urethane and green tape. Its easy to pull up previously laid poly when removing tape. The more expensive blue tape uses a different adhesive which won't react or bond with most surfaces. And here is a little trick I learned about avoiding paint line edges which can be a real bitch to sand out. Lay your tape down then slightly curl up the leading edge. That way when you spray your paint, clear or whatever you wind up with a uniform surface. The level of the new paint will gradually angle down to the level of the surface its laid on, no ledge.

I found a helluva deal on a Craftsman 14.4 cordless drill, maglight, dustbuster, 2 batteries and charger a while ago. I find their battery chargers are good quality and the batteries last a long time before needing a recharge. But if you want to bash tools then I say stay away from Black & Decker cordless products. CRAPOLA Sorry, but I agree with Guitarfrenzy on this one. If you smell wood burning then you better stop and find out why.

You must know SOMEBODY who owns a digital camera. Just bring the guitar over to their house, take a bunch of pics, have your friend load them onto his computer and then email them to you.

I'm due for a change myself. Been playing for nigh on 30 years and am not really even close to being as "good" as I could be. I've been thru so many stagnation plateaus. I know LOTS of songs but getting really sick of playing pentatonics and the same old crap. Never been in a band but I've jammed with lots of people. I recently met up with a buddy from school and hes really into classical flamenco and gypsy style music. Hes doing very well for the 2 years hes been at it but has difficulty playing MY music. So I figure, what the hell, its time for a change, I'll go his way. So now I'm relearning the natural scale and picking up on songs by The Gipsy Kings etc. I refurbished my old no-name classical guitar and playing it with a flatpick ala Gipsy Kings. But heres a bit of advice, every time you figure you are getting sick of the same old music and style of playing try something different. I've dabbled into all kinds of stuff and that helps towards being a more well-rounded guitar player. I'm talking about things like slide playing, alternate/open tunings, fingerpicking etc. Someone once asked me, "How do you recover from hitting the wrong note when playing in public?" My answer, "Do it a couple more times and people will think its JAZZ." You can go anywhere and ask the same questions but I'm sure you will get the same answers. Like the lost pedestrian who asked a street busker, "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" Answer: "PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!"

Nothing fancy like you guys have but still very effective. Guitars: 1988 Am. Std. Strat (aquamarine metallic) with Seymour Duncan Hotstack blade in the bridge, wired for coil split. 1967 Hagstrom III, all original and functional (in avatar) I sure miss my mahogany, NEED another guitar w/ humbuckers, I just ordered parts for the next guitar as of yesterday. Amp: 1975 Musicman 210 Sixtyfive Sold the Teisco all tube amp (the one in my avatar) Pedals: Rockman X100 chorus, modified w/ footswitch Ibanez TS7 (sucks, hardly use it) shoulda bought a TS9 Crybaby Wah, constructed by my father from an old Morley volume pedal.

I have one of the flatblade variety. But I sure would like to try out one of the concave blades like no. 55. It doesn't really matter what you get, just so long as you find it comfortable and it won't go out of adjustment while working.

The cloth is a separate piece of cotton, stretched around the grill frame and stapled on the back of the frame.